The Country Pottery- Build a Extruder Gun
Intro: The Country Pottery- Build a Extruder Gun
insers the prepared tube, fill with soft clay, and crank the handle.... just like a plydough machine.... on;ly more useful.....
this clay gun cost under 10$ and makes enough tubes for 3 diffrent die heads, though the parts are cheap enohugh to make a bunch.
STEP 1:
you will need:
a caulk gun frame- I picked up this one for 4.95 at the local hardware store- this is a 13 inch gun, designed to use the "regular" sized tubes of glue and caulk
a length of 1 1/2 inch schedule 40 PVC Pipe, this peice is 5 foot long and cost $2.30
1 1/2 inch caps to use as die heads i bout 4 at 70 cents a peice
1 1/2 inch test cap this was 35 cents for 2.
you will also need a marker, a hacksaw with a sharp blade and a mesuring device.
STEP 2: Measuring the Tube
STEP 3: Fit the Die Cap
keep the holes smaller than about 1 inch in diameter, (YMMV). this pattern makes a rope if you twist the clay as it extrudes...
STEP 4: Test Cap Plunger Seal
add a glob of glue (liquid nails) and glue to the piston head of the caulk frame.
let dry for a hour or so.
STEP 5: Finished!
you make have to trim the caps or pipe to make fit.. a sanding block or a rasp works well for this.
Finished- to load the gun, roll a ball of clay between your hand to make a 1 inch rope. insert the rope into the sylinder, and load 'er up!
start sqeezin!
this gun is also useful if you want to extrude materials you cant get in tubes- like stucco or plaster of paris.. the gun tubes are cheap enough to be disposable....
to clean, just pop off the caps and wash out, or just chuck it into a bucket of water until its ready to be used again...
See my other Instrucatables,
Build a country Kickwheel,
and
Build a country Wedging table
14 Comments
DDMGT 3 years ago
vienna01 8 years ago
Anybody figured out how to modify the caulk gun DIY clay extruder to create HOLLOW extrusions?
I made the extruder of this instructable with small changes. I created a pusher from a piece of rubber[looked into hardware store until I found right thickness & trimmed it -backed by metal disk[washers]. I used pipe end caps for the die ends. This is a bit more robust extruder to be used by a group of students. Creating the dies does require use of drill and dremel type tool to carve the thicker pipe caps. Note I also sanded the pipe barrel end on which the pipe caps are placed to prevent difficulty in removing the pipe caps. I use the same pipe barrel with multiple pipe cap dies. Also multiple pipe barrels for different COLORED clays.[Don't trust the cleaning habits of multiple users].
Potter John 12 years ago
thepelton 13 years ago
Olivia 13 years ago
BigCountry 14 years ago
Moose Gueydan 14 years ago
Ive been working on a few diffrent projects, not to mention trying to get enough finished work done for the spring sale.
heres a "Can Crusher" extruder, built by North Main Pottery:
http://www.northmainstudio.com/2015862.html
Moose Gueydan 14 years ago
stephenniall 14 years ago
Im going to use this with a small nozzle (made out of bic pen) for other things such as grease etc
Moose Gueydan 14 years ago
http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=2467
but far be it for me tto tell you you cant make one..
Im already experimenting with this. on how to make a decorating nozzle with a cake tube....
191 uses, even stuffing sausage casings it seems....
Jobar007 14 years ago
http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=2467
Moose Gueydan 14 years ago
becasue the cap I found fit so tiughtly, i havent had any probloems with leaks, and the nose/die cap is being pressed on.. its all a tight fit.. the only thing I glued was the test cap to the gun frame..
you may have to sand the sides of the cap to make it fit, and this may not work in a circular frame calk gun.. (you know I looked and nobody makes empty calk tubes, odd)
if you want to use this for eadibles, you will have to use a food grade adhesive for the end cap, be casue Liquid nailes has formelaldayde in it.
its a cheap trick.. the table top version is comming, im working out some bugs, ill post it when I get done
lemonie 14 years ago
L
Elmundo 14 years ago
Did you have any issues with getting a good seal on the plunger? Some stuff out there really will try to get around a bad seal...especially if the desired outflow is small and creates backpressure...
I can see my forearm aching already from a day of squeezing out clay. We'll have to figure out a way to make the plunger seal removable and adapt this for one of those battery/rechargable guns!